World

After spending a week in Haiti with the Haven Parternship, Deirdre O’Shaughnessy reflects on the challenges facing the country in the years ahead.

It’s the dirt that hits you first. Poverty is dirty. Poverty means rusted tin cans, broken glass, polystyrene takeaway trays and plastic bottles. They are everywhere.

Ripped, dusty shreds of black plastic salute the onlooker, whipping in the wind from gnarled bushes. Rocks litter the landscape, and dust flies up before the wheels of the four-by-four.

Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have lost seats in this general election and remain Britian's third-ranked political party. But with a hung-parliament, Clegg alone will choose the design of the next British parliament. By Malachy Browne.

Results indicate that no party will win the 326 seats required for an overall majority in the British general election. At the time of writing, the Conservative Party won the most number of seats at 292. Labour returned 251 MPs, the Liberal Democrats returned 52 MPs and 27 seats were won by other parties.

For the first time, the US delivers to Israel the message that it may be impossible for a Jewish state to encompass the whole of mandate Palestine. By David Morrison.

General David Petraeus is the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), whose area of responsibility (AOR) stretches from Egypt to the borders of China, covering a large swathe of the Muslim world. As CENTCOM commander, General Petraeus is in overall command of US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ireland Palestine Alliance opposes Israel's probable OECD membership, citing human rights violations. By David Morrison.

In a written answer to Sinn Fein Deputy, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, Foreign Minister, Micheál Martin, told the Dáil on 21 April 2010 that “it is expected that Ireland will join with the other 29 members of the OECD to formally invite Israel to become a member.”

The Roadmap for the Accession of Israel to the OECD Convention, adopted by the OECD Council in November 2007, states:

The nature and future of Afghanistan’s war is now bound to international political calculation, not least the United States’s electoral timetable. By Paul Rogers.

A contest made thrilling by the spectacle of three middle-aged white men in suits is open to the end. By David Hayes.

When visiting journalists first encountered the bewildering complexities of Northern Ireland’s politics at the height of the “troubles,” a kindly piece of advice was on hand from local informants: “If you’re not confused here, you don’t really know what’s going on.” 

The European Union will lend Greece €110bn during the next three years, increasing the tax burden on ordinary workers instead of tackling the Greek economy's structural problems. By Eoin Ó Broin.

Greece is in trouble: on May 19, its government must pay an €8.5bn bill for money borrowed on the private markets 10 years ago.

But the Greek government is broke and can’t borrow any more from the private sector to pay its debts. It runs the risk of being the first developed capitalist economy to default on its debts in the current economic crisis.

Beijing's desperate efforts to cool the country's enormous property bubble may have come too little, too late; a worrying sign for the global economy. By Joe Galvin.

Instead of undoing the Thatcher legacy, New Labour built on it and deepened inequality in Britain, by Vincent Browne.

If ever a government deserved to be removed from office, the New Labour government in Britain does, that is of course aside from our own Government, which, in the league of governments that must be removed asap, is top of the premiership. Instead of undoing the Thatcherite legacy New Labour compounded it.

Early yesterday morning US troops opened fire on a bus full of civilians passing through the Kandahar province, killing four and injuring four, the Washington Post has reported. By Philip Pilkington.

The shootings quickly sparked off protests in the outskirts of Kandahar City outside the bus station. Locals claim that US troops should have been more careful.